


Broken

by Blue_Night



Category: Football RPF, Real Person Fiction
Genre: Crying, Despair, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, M/M, Self-Hatred, after the CL final 2018, cautious hope, painful loss, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Night/pseuds/Blue_Night
Summary: Two minutes can change everything.





	Broken

Everything is broken.

His career. His dreams and hopes crashed. His heart scattered on the floor.

Shattered within two minutes.

He knows that he will never be able to see, hear or think of the numbers 51 and 83 without feeling like choking instantly again. Those two numbers have burned themselves into his memory forever, mocking him as the endless loop of what happened in these two minutes repeats itself over and over again in his hurting mind until he fears that he will go insane.

His entire body is one single throbbing and aching pain, and the voices of his teammates are distant and hardly to hear because of all the screaming in his head.

Not that he needed to hear what they are saying. He doesn't need to hear their words to know what they are thinking. He doesn't need any reminder that he only needed two minutes to crash their worlds.

Two short minutes.

They're not talking to him, of course they're not.

They're ignoring him like they ignored him after the final whistle when the world crumbled down around him and he realized that it would never be the same again. Two short minutes changed it forever, and these minutes will stay with him until the day he will leave this world. People will still remember his name when he's long gone, connecting it with two single damn minutes and the club's worst loss.

Fame and shame lie so close together, the biggest fame of the one player being the deepest shame of the other one.

He doesn't even know whether he shall be relieved about their silence or rather wish that they would finally throw the hate and anger they must feel at him, his thoughts whirling in his numb and paralyzed mind like a merry-go-round while his heart and his body are screaming with pain.

His eyes are dry now, but he knows that the tears will come back soon again. It's astonishing how much tears one can cry even when they should already be drained of every single ounce of water.

Some of his teammates have finally stopped crying, but most of them have still red and puffy faces, seeking comfort in the arms of their friends and moving closer together in their shared misery.

He's not a part of their close circle, he's like a limb that has been cut from the rest of the body, and he slips out of the room and into the elevator, his departure – which is more a flight than anything else – going unnoticed by the others.

Or maybe not unnoticed, they are probably just glad that he's left them, glad that they don't see the face of the one who has let them down in the worst way possible any longer.

The one who needed just two short minutes to crash their world and shatter their pride into a million deep black pieces.

 

***

 

The tears come back when he buries his face in the cold pillow of his hotel bed, wetting the white linen. His throat burns with the sobs he can't control and with the acid of his shame and his defeat, the sounds of his despair ringing unnaturally loud in the dark and lonely room.

Too loud to hear the sound of the door open and close again.

He flinches when the mattress suddenly moves beneath him and two arms wrap themselves around him, and he instinctively tries to get away from the warm body lying next to him.

Intruding on his misery and loneliness so unexpectedly.

He doesn't deserve to find forgiveness and consolation in the strong arms holding him, not after minute 51 and minute 83. But Emre just pulls him closer, ignoring his feeble attempts to free himself from the tight embrace and the consolation and forgiveness that comes with it.

Of course it's Emre.

It's always Emre.

It was Emre who gave him the feeling of being welcome and at home in the unknown city when he came to Liverpool, so young and full of foolish and childish hopes and dreams, and if settling in in Liverpool was easier than he'd ever thought possible, then it was only because of the dark-haired midfielder and his irresistible smile.

Emre was always there, as his teammate and his friend. But Emre soon became so much more, the center of his world, the center of everything, the center he circled around.

Only that his world is broken now, broken like his heart. There is no center anymore, only chaos, a whirling mess that whirls faster and faster with every minute that passes, and even Emre won't be able to fix this mess and put his world together again. How can Emre even try to do that after what he has done?

Some things can never be fixed again, and some wounds are too deep to ever heal, no matter how much he wished that Emre could do the miracle and take the pain away, undo the damage he's caused and undo the hurt the others are feeling because of him.

“Loris, Loris...”

Words barely audible, but they vibrate against his skin where soft lips are pressing against his hurting temples with so much tenderness. Tenderness he doesn't deserve and which he doesn't want, but his shaking body just burrows deeper into Emre's embrace, seeking warmth and comfort and forgetting.

There is no forgetting for him, but the warmth eases the chills wrecking him at last, and the gentleness of Emre's hands stroking his back steadily soothes him enough that he can finally breathe again in between his sobbing.

“'m sorry, so sorry...” He barely recognizes his own voice, but Emre does, and this is all that counts.

“I know, love, I know. Hush, please don't cry anymore. Please don't cry. I love you.”

If he wasn't hurting the way he actually is, then he would surely be amazed that Emre still loves him. How can the younger one love him when he hates himself so much? When he's just shattered Emre's world within two short minutes too?

Emre should hate and loathe him, blame him like all the others blame him.

But love doesn't work like that. Love doesn't blame, and love doesn't point its finger at failures, love forgives and love understands when there shouldn't be any forgiveness and understanding left.

Love is the tiny flame in the darkness lighting it up when there seems to be no hope at all any longer, and Loris draws in a shaky breath and allows Emre's love to light up the blackness surrounding him, his tears slowly drying on the younger man's shoulder. They lie like this for a while without speaking, but Emre is still stroking his back and dabbing small kisses against his temples and his wet cheeks.

His body is still hurting all over, but the merciless stream of his thoughts slowly comes to a halt, and Loris can at least breathe again without choking on every shaky breath he takes.

“I love you, Loris. Nothing will ever change that. Nothing.” Emre whispers into the darkness, and Loris can taste the salt of his own tears on Emre's lips when the younger one kisses him tenderly.

“Love you too. I'm so incredibly sorry.” His voice is raw and hoarse, but Emre's kiss assures him that it doesn't matter how he sounds, the honesty of his words the only important thing here.

He's still broken, his world crashed, his heart shattered into pieces.

But Emre is there, his tower of strength, and when Loris eventually drifts off to sleep, the searing pain he's still feeling has become a little bit more bearable, and the heavy weight of his guilt and shame pressing down on him is a little less heavy.

Tomorrow will be a new day, and with Emre standing by his side and loving him the way he does, Loris will find a way to go on.


End file.
